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alternative transport solutions

Chair of the Plan Melbourne Committee, Professor Roz Hansen, has been quoted saying that the government is spending $6 billion to $8 billion on a road solution that belongs in the 1960s or 1970s and that ‘it is not smart, innovative or progressive thinking’. She is thus now in step with majority opinion among Melbourne's community groups. Attendance at the protest today was representitive of the broader community, comprising many members of important community groups, plus the Greens, Opposition politicians, and local government figures. Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Lands Vic, has been battling to protect one of Melbourne's most important public parks, Royal Park, since 1996, in particuar from the regularly recurring attempts of successive Victorian governments to build the East West Link which would destroy what remains of Royal Park. This is an affront to democracy and would be the theft of one of Mebourne's greatest assets.

An Australian firm called MeeMeep has developed a management interface for a social network of people to act as couriers for each other as the need and opportunity arise. The participants can negotiate costs but MeeMeep makes the final payments when all parties are satisfied. The pay-off is that you can negotiate cheap transport of anything from a computer to a pair of sunglasses to where you want it by finding someone who is already going in that direction and who will charge less than commercial transport solutions to move your object.